It is difficult to know what will collapse first: the west's milquetoast support for Ukraine, always fragile and now nearing its end as the US Republican Party takes the Congress and blocks further aid; or Russia's capacity to throw ever-more untrained and poorly-supplied conscripts into the battle in the hope of soaking up whatever Ukraine still has left in the way of bullets and missiles. Either way, it's a sorry show on both sides. Putin is a moron who cares nothing for his people and the west has been content to trade Ukrainian lives in order to degrade Russian military capability. No one except the Ukrainians themselves comes out of this without shame.